


Absence (Makes the Heart Grow Fonder)

by akaparalian



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 03:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10755888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaparalian/pseuds/akaparalian
Summary: Finn is off on a Very Important Mission. Poe has no kriffing idea how to deal.





	Absence (Makes the Heart Grow Fonder)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt over on tfa_kink: "We sure get a lot of Finn waiting for Poe to come back from dangerous missions. Can I please get Poe standing around on base waiting for Finn to come back from one of HIS dangerous missions?"
> 
> Technically, it's from a round that's already closed, but uh, it hasn't been filled, so hopefully this is still okay.
> 
> EDIT: So, uh, initially I had BB-8's dialogue in < > brackets, but the HTML uploader kind of. Ate it. So. Now it's in [ ] brackets and hopefully fixed?????

Poe didn't learn this part until later, actually, but there was a bet going amongst his squadron on how long it was gonna take him to completely break. Maybe if he'd been in a better state of mind, he would've figured it out a lot quicker, but as it was he barely even noticed the way Jess watched him eagle-eyed on the second day, or the way Snap sighed and shook his head at the end of the third just before he clapped Poe on the shoulder and wandered off to his quarters.

He knew this was coming. Eventually. He understood that Finn slowly working his way into Intelligence, first just to debrief on what he remembered about the First Order and then to actually start gathering _new_ data, would probably turn into him running missions at some point. He watched the physical therapy turn into regular training turn into drills with some of the various Intelligence teams, and he understood that none of that was abstract, that one of these days Finn was going to actually be out in the field. Hopefully -- for the Resistance's sake, if not his own -- sooner rather than later, because with Rey and Skywalker still off doing whatever it was they were doing, they needed all the info they could get on the recuperating First Order.

What he _hadn't_ seen coming was exactly how much it would impact his day-to-day kriffing existence.

The mission was slated to take a week at _minimum_ , and when Poe'd asked, the General had told him (with a weirdly soft and knowing look in her eye that he'd frankly rather die than examine in too much detail right at that moment) that they could allow an extra week on top of that before they started to get worried. But here it was, day four, and he was going out of his Force-damned _mind_.

[Designation:Finn is not expected back for at least two more standard days,] BB-8 pointed out for the third time when Poe zoned out working on Black One and nearly lost a finger. [To worry this soon is pointless.]

"I _know_ , buddy," Poe hissed back, sucking on the finger he'd smashed. It came out harsher than he intended, and he immediately added a "Sorry," even though BB-8 was giving an impression more of long-suffering than anything else. 

[If you understand, why do you continue to worry?] they chirped, even though years of being attached to Poe at the metaphorical hip meant that they probably already knew the answer. [Worry will not bring Designation:Finn home sooner.]

"I can't turn it off just because I can understand it's pointless." Poe hesitated for a moment, before sighing and slinging the spanner he was holding back into his toolbox. "And this isn't helping. Come on."

BB-8 dutifully followed him out of the hangar and through the hallways of D'Qar Base, and to the droid's credit, they made it almost all the way back to Poe's bunk before innocently saying, [Perhaps if you were to tell Designation:Finn about your desire for coupling, you would not worry so much.]

BB-8 knew Poe better than almost anyone else, and the little astromech certainly had a better grasp on the nuances of organics' emotions and relations than most droids he'd met (a certain gold protocol droid came to mind), but sometimes they were way, _way_ off the mark. "You kidding? That'd be way worse, buddy." Not least of all because Poe had absolutely zero doubts about how, exactly, that would go down. _Gee, Poe, you're great and all, but see, there's this girl who's really strong and smart and beautiful and also a Jedi, so--_

BB-8 clicked wordlessly at him as Poe keyed in the code to his door, the droid equivalent of tutting, clearly unimpressed. [You function even more poorly when Designation:Finn is not around than when he is. I had not thought that this was possible.]

"Can it," Poe said sternly, but this time, there was no heat to it; for one thing, they were at least in the quiet of their quarters, where he wouldn't have to worry about anyone else overhearing BB-8's scolding and word of that somehow getting back to Finn. For another thing, he was strong enough to admit that the droid was... more than likely right.

BB-8's demeanor softened, their dome lowering slightly as they rolled forward to gently headbutt Poe's legs. [Only three days remain until the beginning of the return window,] they pointed out, and Poe couldn't help but smile, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. 

"Yeah. Thanks, buddy. Only three more days," he said, and very firmly told himself that he would be fine. After all, _he_ wasn't the one out there risking his skin this time.

\---

Day five was hellish. Day six was torture. Day seven saw Jess, usually quite keen to tease Poe without a shred of mercy whenever the opportunity presented itself, smiling at him unusually gently and dragging him to her quarters to watch old holos with Snap and Kare.

Day eight, Poe barely slept. Day nine, he barely ate. Day ten...

"General, please, they're my squadron. I don't see why I shouldn't be flying with them today."

General Organa had always had a singular ability to be soft yet firm and unyielding. She gently set a hand at Poe's elbow and told him with a voice full of steel, "Commander, you're in no fit state to be in the air right now. Frankly, you'd be a danger to yourself and everyone else, and we can't afford that."

Poe bristled, even though BB-8 at his feet was very quietly whirring, [Designation:General Organa is the most intelligent organic I have ever met and you should listen to her, as I do not want you to damage yourself.]

"I can _fly_ , General," he said, "This is ridiculous, I'm _fine._ I should be up there."

"Commander, if I let you up there in this state, I have absolutely no faith that you'd come back down." But here her voice softened, becoming less General Organa and more Leia, who had sometimes come to visit Yavin 4 when he was a child, as she added, "Poe, I'm not the only one who's worried about you. Black Squadron each came to me, individually, to express their concerns. You're not in a fit state right now, and this mission is noncritical. You're the best we've got; I'm not going to chance losing you over a glorified supply run."

Poe was almost certain she'd slipped the 'the best we've got' in there just to butter him up, and even if he wasn't, the coil of shame in the pit of his stomach wasn't going to let him just walk away from this. His squad was going to be up there soon, without him, because he couldn't shake this stupid cloud of worry hanging over his head, and if something happened to them and he wasn't up there to help fight it...

"General, I --" he tried again, but Leia held up a hand to interrupt him.

"Poe, I'm saying this as your General, your mentor, your friend, your parents' friend, whoever you need me to be to get you to listen to me. You're not flying this mission for your own safety, and, Force help us all, please _talk_ to him once he gets back."

" _General,_ " he managed to choke out, torn between a hysterical laugh and something more like confused irritation, but she simply shot him a look, one eyebrow canted, that had him swallowing his tongue. BB-8 clicked smugly.

"Dismissed, Commander," she said, and really, there was nothing left for Poe to do but walk out of there while he still could.

\---

Poe had somehow -- he genuinely wasn't quite sure how it had happened -- managed to stumble all the way to the wee hours of day twelve when he woke to BB-8 screeching in his ear.

"What?" he mumbled, his brain taking a second to start interpreting the Binary properly as he recovered from being so rudely awakened. BB-8, he could see as his eyes started to adjust, was rocking back and forth rapidly, their dome all but spinning as they chattered at him --

[Designation:Finn has returned, useless BB-7 was not useless for once as they saw him leaving a debriefing with the General and came to find me, you must hurry and inform him of your desire for coupling before the next time he leaves so that you will stop being even more useless than BB-7 and -- ]

"Oh, shit," Poe gasped, not even focused on all the ways BB-8 was now embellishing on his supposed uselessness and outright ignoring their suggestion that he 'inform Finn of his desire for coupling,' but still shoving his feet into boots and shrugging on a shirt faster than his sleepy limbs were really ready for. BB-8 kept up their diatribe, rolling after him as he tripped out of his room and into the hallway, but Poe wasn't paying them any attention, bolting down the hall, which was thankfully empty at this time of night. It wasn't that he couldn't wait until the morning to see Finn, it was well past midnight and he was sure he was probably exhausted after more than a week in the field, but -- but --

But he took a corner too fast and ended up slamming into someone, BB-8 screaming and spinning out of the way just barely in time. Poe, not nearly so lucky, hit the ground _hard_ , his head thunking against the scuffed flooring as the person he'd hit said, "Oh, Force, Poe, are you okay?"

Just his luck. "Finn?" he groaned, rubbing his head and sitting up slowly to find that it was, in fact, Finn who now crouched over him. He looked a bit scuffed up, maybe, with a swollen lip and a little adhesive bandage on one cheek, but he was decidedly whole, and alive, and back on base where he belonged, and something inside Poe that had spent a week and a half desperately at odds with the universe finally quieted and settled down.

"Yeah, it's me," Finn said, a smile curving across his face as he reached out to carefully help Poe back to his feet. "Where's the fire?"

"Uh, no fire," Poe said, which, to his credit, was a good, safe start. He was firmly of the belief that whatever head injury he had sustained was to blame for the fact that he followed it up with, "BB-8 said you were here and woke me up so I could come find you and stop being useless."

The way Finn laughed, so incredibly bright and warm for someone who'd spent almost his entire life in the cold, antiseptic black-and-white cocoon of the First Order, made Poe's chest feel tight. "Useless, huh? You miss me that much?"

[He nearly damaged himself on over two dozen different occasions and nearly damaged _me_ on a half dozen more and he still refuses to express to you his desire for coupling!] BB-8 screamed, and not for the first time, Poe thanked every lucky star in the galaxy that Finn had yet to learn Binary.

"I missed you too," Finn told the droid, laughing again, and then glanced back up at Poe, his smile widening a little bit. "Maybe not as much as I missed _you,_ though."

Poe choked on air. BB-8 screeched in a way that, though it meant nothing precisely in Binary or any other language, nevertheless served to convey their immense frustration with how utterly _ridiculous_ all organics had yet again proven themselves to be.

"I should let you sleep," was all Poe managed to get out, his mouth thankfully functioning on autopilot, before he took a deep, slightly shuddering breath and recentered himself. Kriff, but he'd been at his wit's end for nearly two weeks. Looking back on it now, with Finn safe and sound and standing with him here in this hallway in the middle of the night, it was suddenly a lot clearer exactly what state he'd been in. "It's. Really good to see you, buddy."

"You too," Finn said, but then visibly hesitated, biting his lip for a moment, before slowly adding, "You really missed me that much, huh?"

"What d'you mean?" Playing innocent was all Poe could really think to do at the moment, because, well. He _had_ missed Finn that much, but he was just fine with Finn never really finding that out.

"The General said she had to keep you grounded for a mission a few days ago."

Or maybe not.

Poe sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and smiled ruefully. "Yeah, well, I. I guess I'm not used to being the one who gets left behind."

Finn smiled at him again, slow and warm, and Poe could feel the tips of his ears burning, because dammit, this was -- this was way too close now to the conversation BB-8 wanted them to have, about _coupling,_ and he hadn't slept properly in so long, and Finn kept _looking_ at him, and it took Poe longer than it should to process when Finn said, "Now you know how I feel."

He blinked, a little dumbfounded. "What?"

It was Finn's turn to look a little bashful, and he shrugged, sticking his hands in his pockets. "When you go off on your missions, I can't ever make myself think of anything else. I wind up completely useless most of the time. Now maybe you see what that's like, huh?"

And Poe thought back to everything that's happened over the past twelve days, how distracted he'd been, how hard it had been to sleep sometimes, how many different ways his brain had come up with against his will that Finn's mission might have gone wrong, how the General had actually thought he would be a danger to himself in the air because of how _off_ he was, and how that -- all of that -- wasn't because Finn was his friend. Well, it _was_ , but at the same time it _wasn't_ , and...

[Finally,] BB-8 mumbled to themself as Poe leaned forward to cup Finn's cheek with one hand. The astromech was soundly ignored.

"I missed you," Poe said again, with feeling, and Finn grinned with all the power of a sun.

"I missed you, too," Finn said simply, and leaned forward to close the distance between them.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to come cry about Star Wars (and other things!) with me, I'm on Twitter & Tumblr @akaparalian. <3


End file.
